Vaccinating a Nation: How Digital Workers are Making a Difference

NHS Trusts get immediate results as Blue Prism’s intelligent automation supports the vaccine rollout across the UK

LONDON, AUSTIN TX – March 24, 2021 — Blue Prism’s digital workers are supporting multiple NHS Trusts in the rapid rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine across the UK. A Blue Prism® intelligent automation solution has been built out in less than ten days, offering immediate value for this critical, large-scale healthcare operation.

With nearly half the population already receiving the first dose of the vaccine, the UK is rolling out one of the world’s most efficient vaccination programs at break-neck speed. By using technology to identify how to create more efficient processes, the NHS has been able to respond to the complex logistical demands of getting jabs in arms.

NHS Trusts deal with a number of challenges including the heavy administrative workload that comes with the reporting of first and second round vaccine recipients (which vaccine, which arm, dates etc.). Previously, manual input of this data across multiple systems was necessary to track vaccinations through the National Immunisation Vaccine System (NIVS). This was time intensive and required extra staff hours, some taken from wards and diverted from patient care. In addition, reporting has to be complete before second round doses can be administered; any delay here creates longer wait times.

Blue Prism’s intelligent automation has been instrumental in helping to relieve some of the most significant issues of manual data handling to speed up the efficiency of the vaccine rollout:

• Digital workers have been deployed to automate the data entry of vaccine information into the National Immunisation Vaccine System, saving time and increasing accuracy of reporting.
• Speedy data input is ensuring that second round doses are working to schedule and more jabs are in arms faster.
• NHS staff are now able to focus on other jobs, including critical patient care and administering the vaccine.

• Automations automatically scale according to workload allowing 100s of digital workers to automatically swarm to backlogs as they occur, releasing tens of thousands of hours of administrative effort back to front line staff.

Blue Prism and the NHS are long-time partners and have collaborated on a number of transformative projects. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NHS has used Blue Prism’s digital workers for a number of life-saving healthcare initiatives, including the automation of reporting staff antibody testing, saving thousands of hours for hardworking NHS staff.

Alongside the vaccine rollout Blue Prism has been helping organizations and industries across the globe through the COVID-19 Response Program. By donating upwards of 500 licences, Blue Prism software has been used extensively to combat some of the most critical issues faced during the pandemic, including for solutions to help financial institutions keep customers solvent, to assist travel companies dealing with the demand of cancellation and refund requests, to maintain fuel supply chains and to help learning establishments transition to online services.